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What did the PM’s most recent announcement on border security really mean?
February 4, 2025

Is there any meat to this or is it more of the same?

U.S. President Trump seemed relatively pleased with the commitments PM Trudeau made in their phone conversation on Feb 3rd. From a tariff war perspective, that’s a good thing. I don’t think that Trump really gives a tinker’s damn about the minute amount of Fentanyl that is shipped into the U.S. from Canada, or the handful of illegal aliens that sneak into the U.S. from the north – versus the thousands of illegals and tons of fentanyl that enters the U.S. from Mexico. He simply doesn’t like Justin Trudeau and is therefore swinging his economic hammer in an attempt to ruin him politically, and subsequently we pay the price as a nation.


But let’s examine the reality of PM Trudeau’s announcement:



Move ahead with its $1.3 billion border plan announced in December

Yup, got it. Old news. $1.3B over six years. I recall every word of it and none of it means boots on the ground.


List cartels as terrorists

Big whoop. They are already organized crime groups and police and the courts have legislation to deal with them from investigative and sentencing perspectives. If Canada’s terrorism legislation helps, great, but in essence Canada is changing the definition of ‘terrorism’ if they are going to now call armed thugs that manufacture drugs and transport them around the world ‘terrorists’. I don’t really care one way or the other, but it is not an earth-shattering development in my view.


Reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel

Okay. Old news but still makes sense. In the meantime, they rented two Blackhawk warships that’ll spend as much time on the ground being serviced than flying in the skies over 5000 miles of border, 24/7. The rest of the RCMP is already short of aviation assets to meet their current policing needs nationally, but on we go.


Enhanced coordination with our American partners

In Ontario, Michigan and New York State, the RCMP and OPP already have officers imbedded in several U.S. ports of entry to facilitate cross border intelligence sharing and cross-border investigations. Could there be more of this across Canada? Absolutely.


Increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl

What? There are no ‘people’ to do this. He’ll be looking for the RCMP and CBSA to redeploy officers. Neither agency has the human resources to do this. The RCMP are already short at least 1000 officers for their Federal Policing Program (which includes narcotics investigations) and they are desperately hurting for officers in many provinces. CBSA are short at least 2000 agents just to meet their current needs without an enhanced border security framework that extends beyond the Ports of Entry.


Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border

Name them! CBSA has 8500 front line agents working at the various Ports of Entry. This number of 10,000 must include them, the handful of RCMP officers they can claim are committed to border security across the country and probably the 200 the OPP has at least temporarily assigned to help, in the interests of the safety of all Ontario communities. All of that is a shell game at best.


Appointing a Fentanyl Czar

And who will be anointed? It has to be someone with a strong and current law enforcement background as opposed to a politician. It should be a ‘Drug Czar’ and not one with a Fentanyl specific portfolio, and perhaps the role should simply belong to the RCMP executive that commands the Federal Policing program.


The other reality is, Canada could have a dozen Fentanyl Czars, but there is no one for them to command. He/she will be a General without an army. All police services conduct drug investigations already, 24/7, 365, including Fentanyl cases. Most police services put all the resources they possibly can into dismantling drug manufacturers and traffickers, and include money laundering investigators in their efforts. They don’t need a Czar to confuse their command and control structures. They just need more people to do what they already do very well. And then they need a sufficient number of Federal Prosecutors to ensure hard-fought cases aren’t tossed because of the lack of a Crown Attorney. I won’t bother getting into our catch and release judicial system.


Signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million

I don’t have a clue what that means. Canada has an organized crime intelligence structure in Canada that is second to none. Every province has a Criminal Intelligence Service Bureau, which are linked to the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC). The provincial Bureaus are directed by committees of police leaders. CISC is commanded by a senior RCMP officer. The U.S. do not have a structure that remotely compares. These Bureaus gather, analyze and share intelligence through and with municipal, First Nations, provincial police services and the RCMP, as well as CBSA, CSIS and more member agencies. They also help fund joint forces investigations into organized crime groups – including money laundering and narcotics of all types.


Additionally, they have long established links to the FBI, Homeland Security and the ATF.


So, what changes on the intelligence front with this announcement? Does the PM intend to direct them as to who or what group to gather intelligence on?


Launch a Canada- U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering

Sounds good. It happens intermittently now on a case-by-case basis, but a permanent structure would certainly be better. It doesn’t require the direction of the PM however. The Mounties should be the lead from the Canada side and be the link to all police services here as well as CISC, but once again it requires warm bodies.


Don’t get me wrong, ANYTHING that is done to improve what we are failing so badly at now is a good thing. But this announcement is more political smoke and mirrors than it is meaningful. Theres no meat on the bones here. It also drives me to distraction that it takes the irrational threats and lies of a petulant child from the most powerful bully pulpit on earth to force an elementary start at doing what we should have been doing for years.


When Canada announces a strategy to hire thousands of additional officers for both the RCMP and CBSA, that’ll mean were actually serious. I wait with bated breath.

Leadership involves risk, especially in policing

By Chris Lewis • March 28, 2026
Leadership is inundated with risk, every hour of every day, in all sectors. In policing, legislative authorities and established policy are the ever-present guideposts, but occasionally policy just doesn’t apply. At times someone has to just make a decision to do something, or not, or they will fail the public they serve and the personnel it is their duty to lead. If it goes bad, time to own up, do damage control, learn from it and move forward. It always frightened me when I saw some at the senior executive level in policing think that supervisors and managers operate in a pristine little bubble where nothing should ever go wrong. Then when it did because some supervisor tried their best to make something work for all the right reasons, they wanted to pigeon-hole the person that took the risk. There were times during my own career when executives were not encouraged to take any risk either. In fact, taking risk was career risk in itself. Despite the best of intentions, if it went bad, the one ‘responsible’ be forever labelled as having failed. Even if the gamble went well, the jaundiced eyes from above would still forever look at them as being a potential liability. It became the “Oh, him. He’s the one that...” At times the daily decision making of high-level commanders would be second-guessed by those in the executive suites – some of whom had never really commanded anything. My buddy retired Chief Wayne Frechette used to describe these folks as: “They’ve never been out after dark on company time.” I know this same concept was alive in many other police services. Some at executive levels actually did serve in operational roles at some point but they never took a risk. Somehow, they were fortunate to skate through difficult situations through sheer luck as opposed to good decision-making and never developed any scar tissue along the way. They didn’t learn from failure – they survived by luck. They also were viewed by weak executives above them as being golden because there was never a milli-second of negativity around them. They were Teflon. But those that worked under their “command” (for lack of a better word) had no respect for them. They simply watched them walk around with coffee in hand, never leaving the office or making a decision. It wasn’t leadership, but it did pave the way to stardom from on high, for some. True leaders do take risks at times. Many I worked with and for did it all and did it well. They did so in the best interests of those they served and those they led, because it wasn’t about themselves, but was done in the service of those that placed their trust in them. Policy simply doesn’t fit every situation. It is most often a guide that anticipates most circumstances that employees will face, particularly the more common (high-frequency) ones. But it cannot predict every possible scenario. When that happens in policing, it can occur in very unlikely situations (low-frequency) that are incredibly high-risk. Supervisors cannot say “Sorry folks, the book doesn’t cover this one” and run away crying. They also don’t have time to tell bad guys, “Hey big fella, sit tight. We need to take a pause here and get the whiteboard out so we can have a group-think about how to stop your murderous rampage.” I think that many pseudo-leaders – far too many, are afraid to make risky decisions out of fear that an error will jeopardize their career. Instead, they risk their careers by not making decisions. Or as I like to say: “their fear of career-risk, risks their careers.” This can be fatal in the policing world. When a police supervisor shirks their responsibilities or quivers, sucks their thumb, and prays for the situation to go away, thankfully constables will come forward and do their best to get their teammates through it. Sometimes that ends well and when the supervisor emerges from their fear-induced coma, they will more often than not take credit for the success. But when the situation goes to hell-in-a-handbasket – despite best efforts, the pseudo-leader will document the risk-taking employee and add another bullet-point to their list of things they’ve done to “hold people accountable.” The panel at their next promotional interview will likely hear the false rendition proudly told. I hear examples of this practise from serving police officers across North America on a much too frequent basis. True leaders develop a culture of trust among those they lead that their suggestions and feedback are encouraged and valued. Their confidence that the leader wants their input encourages them to constantly analyze situations and give thought to what policy says and the options available when policy says nothing. That is good for the employee’s development and may save the leader’s hind-end and the continuity of the team on occasion when an employee steps forward in a crisis. Having said that, there will clearly be situations where there isn’t time for the whiteboard, and a decision needs to be made by the responsible “leader.” When it doesn’t work out, the real leader will step forward and be accountable. But when it does go well, the true leader will allow the light to shine on the team they have the honour to lead. In my view, we’re not seeing enough of that in North American policing. We need more genuine leaders at all levels of law enforcement organizations. Developing and promoting real leaders that can manage risk effectively is a must. Anything less fails everyone.

Why Joint Forces Operations Are No Longer Optional

By Chris Lewis • March 26, 2026
They used to be simply a "nice to have."

Police investigating police: Is there another option?

By Chris Lewis • March 18, 2026
The March 17 th announcement by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) regarding the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) investigation into allegations by an Ontario Justice that three TPS officers colluded and lied during a 2024 murder trial against a man that ran over and killed TPS Constable Jeffrey Northrup in 2021, has further inflamed the debate over who should investigate alleged police wrongdoing. This instance combined with the recent arrests and ongoing police investigation into several TPS officers for their alleged involvement with organized crime, has brought this discussion to a boiling point. I appreciate the public perceptions around this investigative model given that the average citizen doesn’t necessarily understand the professionalism and commitment of police investigative teams like the recent OPP Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) group. I have all the confidence the world in that team, but I also personally know the ability and integrity of the OPP Detective Inspector in-charge. So, if these investigations aren’t carried out by police, who will do them? They do not fall under the mandate of the Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which by the way is largely comprised of former police criminal investigators and forensic identification experts, many of whom investigated homicides in police services. For SIU to assume a larger role, they would have to grow exponentially and expand their team of ‘former cops’. These cases generally do not fall under the purview of Ontario’s Inspectorate of Policing either. They would loosely fall under the oversight role of Ontario’s Law Enforcement Complaints Agency (LECA), who is responsible for receiving, managing and overseeing public complaints against police, but frankly they don’t have mandate or the horsepower to conduct complex criminal investigations. They oversee the “public complaints” that may lead to a criminal investigation, but the investigation would be the responsibility of a police service to conduct. An expansion of the LECA would require a tremendous amount of funding and human resources, most of whom would also be former police officers. Hiring and training civilians to conduct such investigations is an option, but largely an incomprehensible one. Police criminal investigators are trained officers that generally start out as uniformed officers responding to occurrences and investigating more routine and less serious crimes, i.e. minor assaults and property crimes. They build investigative expertise over time, including in interviewing and interrogation; gathering and securing physical evidence; legal processes like obtaining judicial authorizations; presenting evidence in court; and various investigative strategies. They learn how to work with special police units that provide specific investigative skills, and more. All of this doesn’t happen overnight, but over a period of years and with the tutelage of more experienced investigators along that journey. Trying to turn a group of young and well-educated civilians – no matter how intelligent and well-intended, into a team of elite investigators, would be a complete disaster and unfair to the public or to the officers being investigated. Over my many years as a member or as the Director of the OPP CIB, my colleagues and I investigated criminal allegations against cops from other agencies. Before the SIU was formed, we investigated officers from many Ontario police services – large and small, who had used deadly force. Many were cleared and a number were arrested and charged. We also investigated criminal allegations against police chiefs in Ontario. Again, several were appropriately cleared, and some were brought before the courts. Municipal, provincial and federal elected officials were similarly investigated and some charged. Our members also investigated police officers in other provinces, including high-ranking ones. I personally investigated two Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers that were involved in an arrest that result in the death of a suspect. They were properly exonerated, but I would have charged them in a heartbeat if they had wrongfully killed than man. I arrested an OPP Sergeant for sexual assault. A CIB colleague investigated and arrested two different OPP officers for criminal offences. Both of those officers had been personal friends of mine and years later committed suicide. There are tons of similar examples that I can refer to over my career. All of these involved the oversight and legal analysis of a Crown Attorney, sometimes from another province. The interesting thing, and what most of the anti-police folks will never believe, is that in every single one of those investigations, the dialogue that I was involved in with other officers that I worked with or supervised, involved doing what was right. In other words, “If the allegation is substantiated, we will put the case together, arrest them and put them before the courts.” Not even once, did we think about or do anything that would give an officer a pass when they committed a criminal offence. Never. I have every confidence in the world that the vast majority of municipal and RCMP colleagues across Canada would operate under the same guiding principle. Has the occasional officer worked in conflict with that approach? Undoubtedly. Were some investigators not as committed or capable as they should be and perhaps did a poor investigation accidentally or deliberately? Quite likely so. But I truly believe those cases are the exception, not the rule in criminal investigations. Where I more often believe poor investigations or deliberate attempts to inappropriately give a colleague a break continues to occur, is in Police Act investigations, where policy or employee harassment wrongdoings are suspected. I like to think that the focus on that continues to improve, but not fast enough in some cases. Sadly, I know now that unbeknownst to me at the time, it happened under my watch. A focus for my next article. The public and police deserve the very best of investigators to ensure that bad cops are effectively put out of business and good officers are cleared. If there’s another effective option that would appease the doubting public – aside from using current officers from other agencies or creating a new and costly entity that would be staffed by former police officers, I’d like to hear it.